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Here’s my thoughts on pictures #1 & 3… When I am taking pictures of a single blossom, I try to eliminate other distractions; this includes other flowers. So I try to position myself in such a way that the other flowers are out of the frame, or if and when possible, remove the other flowers (or have a sibling hold the other flowers off to the side so they’re out of the frame 😊) So I would’ve tried to exclude the flower that’s behind the main subject.
Having said all that, I really like the lighting! Very nice dark-light contrast going on and beautiful color in the flower!!
Between those two pics, I like the first one better; the other one has a lot more going on with the leaves. I like being minimalistic in these types of pics. ☺

The 2nd pic is fine, in my opinion, because now it looks like I’m in a flower garden. There’s a more intentional inclusion of the other flowers. I may have even tried to position myself to include the other flowers even more in the background!

I think with these types of single-blossom flowers, whether it’s leaves or flowers in the background, it looks best when the background is rather uniform so as not to distract from the main subject, or that it’s shaped in such a way to accentuate the main subject.

Thanks. Um, I don’t know about the golden light but it was very nice lighting. Is there any reason in particular that you don’t like full sunlight? I thought that it made everything bright, but maybe that’s not the best? Thanks!!! 😉

Yes! I go for bright photos too! But lots of light also creates very dark shadows. The brighter the light, the darker the shadows, so I prefer not to shoot when there’s very intense light, like in the middle of the day. If it’s during the golden hours, then I’ll shoot under direct light because it’s colorful. In these situations, I usually like to shoot away from the sun or 90 degrees from the sun (with my shoulder toward the sun), so that the majority of my photos are in sunlight instead of in shadow.